


The Upside

by VODLIX



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Angel Healing, Angst, Astrology, Blindness, Body Horror, Character Development, Character Study, Color Blindness, Constellations, Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Demons, Eye Trauma, Hell Trauma, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character (mentioned) - Freeform, Original Character Death(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sauntering Vaguely Downwards (Good Omens), Speech Disorders (kind of), Stars, Transformation, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 23:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19486105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VODLIX/pseuds/VODLIX
Summary: Despite Crowley's claims, falling had never changed him. It had, metaphysically, in a lot of ways. But nothing God could ever do to him would take away his core principles, his essence.Aziraphale may be the only person who's ever looked him in his sickly-coloured snake eyes and seen who he was before: someone willing to throw anything and everything if it meant the world keeps turning.These are the 5 things Crowley lost in the name of falling and the one thing God will never be able to take from him.





	1. [ONE]  The idle healing hand of God.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1 — Crowley hadn't fallen, not traditionally. No, his punishment was personalised from God herself.

The days of the fall, Crowley had never associated with Lucifer’s, or as he was called then, Samael’s following. Crowley, contrary to the belief of those who’ll know him later, had an unwavering devotion to Her. He had faith in his work, he loved his siblings endlessly and without prejudice.

So when the fall began, and his siblings fell from the sky with untreated battle wounds and broken wings Crowley had sought God’s guidance.

* * *

“If I am the healer, why not let me heal the fallen as I have the ill? They are misguided and lost, but I do not believe they deserve pointless suffering. You have cast them from your grace, please, no angel nor being in creation deserves to be without aid.”

God had dismissed him, telling him it was not his place to decide if someone was worthy of help. They had done enough and they were to be the influence of evil within creation.

Crowley had sighed, turning and speaking over his shoulder to Her “I would rather fall than stand idle.”

She considered his words as she watched him vanish from her view.

* * *

“All angels have a purpose, a responsibility. I know demons cannot speak their true name, but what was your purpose? what did She intend for you?” Aziraphale was curious, understandably so. They’d danced around the topic of who he was before the fall many times.

“I was a healer.” Crowley admitted softly, nursing a bottle of wine, “She had intended me to love all, and when it turned out I loved without prejudice, she cast me out for healing the fallen.”

* * *

Crowley’s form depended as he flew. He had not fallen, not yet, but he sought the damned desperately.

“Brother! Samael!” Crowley’s call descended into a wail as he glided over the sulphur-sodden bodied of his brethren. He followed the fading grace of the dying archangel to find Lucifer’s once sun-kissed form resembling nothing more than the rotten bleeding flesh of a beast. 

“Allow me to heal you brother.” Crowley spoke, kneeling by the breathing-corpse’s side.

“Never.” Lucifer hissed, “If it is in God’s will to have me pitied, I will not accept”

“It is not,” Crowley looked troubled by his own words, holding out a hand for his brother to accept “I am straying from God’s plan to aid you. I cannot leave you to suffer. You do not deserve what has been done to you.”

“Who would have thought? I’m proud of you little brother. Cowards follow my word and fight under another’s ambition. You have pathed your own path and there is nothing more honourable.” Lucifer clasped his hand and in that moment the dying light of an archangels grace lit up the boiling pool of sulphur.

The devil’s form hardened, his bare flesh becoming leathered skin and his twisted halo settling as crooked horns. Feathers caught fire to leave webbed bones and his eyelids revealed orbs of red.

Crowley cried out, flailing as his once golden hair was stained red with his brother’s blood and eyes turned from the ever shifting colours of nebulas to an acidic sickly yellow. Once his tanned skin held the constellations of the ether but now all remained was the white expanse of an unwritten book and his muscles diminished to reveal bones who were too long and slender for such an empty frame. He was no longer the vision of health a healer should appear and was instead the embodiment of weakness. He’d imagine he embodied the vision on distrust.

* * *

After that day, he could no longer had the ability to heal others. Crowley assumed his new identity and Lucifer, disoriented from his change, had never known his brother’s new form.


	2. [TWO]  Starlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2 — God had taken away his ability to see his own creation as a punishment. If he did not stand by his creator's side, she would relinquish his own creation.

“My dear, your eyes are simply enchanting. I cannot fathom why you insist on concealing them in my presence.” Aziraphale was leant into Crowley’s personal space, sat besides him on their couch and gently removing the demon’s glasses.

Crowley looked off-put, his expression varying wildly from ashamed to guarded. “I… my eyes just don’t work the same as yours, angel. My eyes- They don’t pick up on bright lights or colours, so looking at you is like looking at a strip of white. Can’t see you without them”

“Oh…” Aziraphale considered the glasses within his hands, pinching the frames and looking at the circles of glass as if they had something to say as well. As if he could search for the truth in the lenses.

Aziraphale abruptly got up, spinning on his feet as he snapped his fingers in a mimicry of Crowley’s own dramatics, “hows that?”, and the blinds closed and lights and candles flickered out as the room was left alight only by Aziraphale’s own natural dim glow.

“Beautiful” Crowley uttered, standing up to meet the angel, offering a hand to dance. “This is the first time I’ve seen your face without those stupid things since the blackout 4 years ago. Heavens—or rather hell —you’re wonderful, you know that?thank you.”

“Oh of course. Anything for you, my dear. anything.”

* * *

One of Crowley’s heavenly duties was to make stars. He wasn’t a starsmyth, for there were many of those. No, he was The Starsmyth. He’d made nebulas and planets and constellations in Her name and so that when all is created, Her creatures could look up at the heavens and see the beauty she has gifted them with.

No star was without a name, a colour and an endlessly powerful glow. He planned out their lifespans and families and he felt powerful doing so. God had her plan with the humans. She decided who was who and how she would guide her creation, but Crowley’s creation was the stars.

He knew when each would die and which would be born. He knew them by name and he knew who they were for the stars were not without thought. They burned with the eternal love of Raphael, and were loyal to their creator as angels and soon humans are to Her.

And he felt so loved being connected to them. Hearing their thoughts and prayers, seeing their growth and fall. He understood, now, why God would create beings, but he would never do one fundamental thing she had.

He never harmed the stars, made them immune to ailment. Filled them with so much power that not even an angels might would burn them up.

He never knew that in falling, She would be so cruel as to revoke his dominion over the stars.

* * *

“I was a starsmyth once” Crowley declared, him and his angel sitting on the library’s roof with a plethora of astrology books nested between them.

“I thought you were a healer?” Aziraphale looked perplexed.

“Before She made suffering, I had none to heal. I had been among the starsmyths. So although you may call that-“ he pointed to a cluster of stars”- some inane star sign or other, I’d call that one verishael the star of kind wisdom. I named them after their namesake, an angel who was kind to me on the day of her creation. She, the angel, had later fallen alongside the others. I wonder if she had been wise or simply silver-tongued.”

“Do you still know her?”

“No. When we fell, we all lost our names. Theres no way for any of us to find one another now. and besides, the centuries made demons cruel and I doubt she still- I doubt she survived the fall. She was small, barely flight-capable when she fell.”

* * *

Crowley, the snake, had spent a night in eden. He felt grief, so much grief, and staring up at the heavens. His eyes once had the clarity to see far into space to see all he had helped build, but were now incapable of seeing much more than his immediate surroundings.

The sky glowed with the newness of the night sky, and he was literally blind to its glory and deaf to his own children’s song. How dare She take away his own creation.

And in that moment, he vowed to do the same to her.


	3. Chapter 3

Crowley remembered what it was like to bathe in the sun that shone on heaven’s plane. Divine warmth would grace his once pale wings and his starry complexion.

Nowadays the only warmth that graced him was the burning of his soles from walking hell’s halls or how consummated ground would lick scorching heat up his skin.

He remembers, vividly, what it was like to have a warm body with regulated temperature, to feel the warmth of his children while flying among the stars. Sadly, being reduced to a reptilian-inspired beast contained within false flesh had not given him the warmth he craved.

Occasionally, whenever he felt confidant enough to, Crowley would be found lounging in Aziraphale’s office in an old oak chair pushed up against a radiator watching the angel work during winter. Occasionally, in summer, he would bring Aziraphale on a holiday to sunny counties where he would lie on beaches while they would indulge in local foods and drink till the sun sunk and rose once more.

When he felt ashamed of his need to seek heat, he would retreat to his office in hell to hide away among the flaming pits or would swim down into the heated belly of the sea where the snake would burry himself deep into the boiling under-crust of the earth.

Perhaps the invention of the heater had brought about more sensible ways to go about feeling warm, but Crowley had never been a particularly sensible person and usually resorted to dramatics whenever he felt emotional, so crust of the earth it was for him.

* * *

“Why on earth is your heater so high?” It was one of the few occasions Aziraphale had sought Crowley out at the demon’s home rather than the other way around, and the angel was met with a living-room filled to the brim with blankets and heaters, “You are aware flammable fabrics and heaters are a fire hazers, are you not?”

“Ssssssshh, ‘m Cold.” Crowley’s voice was muffled from under a heap of blankets where he could be found coiled up as a snake, cold blooded and resisting the need to hibernate.

“I’m sure a bottle of whiskey or some tea would do the trick. What do you say to an Irish coffee? I believe it's within my capabilities to make one within your kitchen if you’d let me.” The angel hummed, dodging bedding to make his way to the hallway where he could access the kitchen.

“Yess, pleasssse!” The demon hissed out pleasantly, transforming to his humanoid self to follow the angel into the kitchen.

The two spent the evening drinking hot beverages and friendship-cuddling (Crowley feels the need to clarify they were not relationship-cuddling.)

* * *

You could say that hating God for making him cold-blooded was petty, especially considering any forms thedemons took were supposed to be a representation of their personality and crime, but Crowley was a very petty person when it came to God.

Rain on a day he had something planned? God’s fault. Someone bought the last ticket to a drama he wanted to take Aziraphale on? God’s fault. The demons were being particularly snotty? God’s fault.

There wasn’t much Crowley didn’t attribute to God’s wiles.

Which was okay, because ultimately God was a bitch on wheels and she deserved to drive at 90 off a cliff and then some.

Why? Because its winter and Crowley is cold and the joyous Christmas spirit has him feeling particularly spiteful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanted to go with something a bit more lighthearted after the last chapter.  
> Also I was working on some artwork for the first chapter! should I release it now or wait until I've finished the fic???  
> Oh and there's a TUA reference in this chapter too.


	4. Adder-ation

On clear starry nights such as these, if you close your eyes and concentrate hard enough, one can hear the stars. They emanated a dazzling whine that filled the universe with celestial static that the Hindus came to dub ‘ohm’.

And he’d never forget the way love and adoration welled in his heart as people payed tribute to his old angelic name. And perhaps that’s because it never stopped.

* * *

“Are you ever prayed to, Angel?” The two had taken to s spot of lunch at a nearby vegan restaurant. Aziraphale had been interested in the creation of complex dishes made with the intention of preventing harm to God’s creations, while Crowley was proud to say he’d popularised the diet to make food inconvenient and to implement social unease on the bases of what one ate.

“No. And I’m quite offended that my name was never considered important enough to add to scripture.” This of course was the reality for a lot of angels that went overlooked, although what stood out about this angel was that he was quite miffed and ready to complain about it.

“you’re not missing out on much.” Crowley sighed, playing with his bean salad using a disposable wooden spoon and sipping a glass of egg-free rosé.“I still get prayed to. Its rather annoying. I have a constant commentary in my head over peoples misfortune and its so boring. Can people stop assuming that health is still my department?”

“it must feel wonderful to feel a constant channel of love.”

“As a demon, I can’t really feel all those sappy emotions. All I feel is the searing pain of a headache and the avid interest in desecrating their holy land. Maybe then they’ll stop praying to me.”

“Oh, Crowley, don’t be like that. They pray because they believe you’re capable of helping. They wouldn’t do so unless they love you.” The look in Aziraphale eyes was one Crowley found hard to meet, the angel’s adoration and sympathy was brim-filled and not something a demon would win against.

“I don’t want to help them.”

“We both know that’s not true. Remember the arch? You bent over backwards to try and help those children.” They both took a moment to quite down and eat, both a little less enthusiastic on the small talk.

Aziraphale, after contemplation decided to say something not untrue, but unwelcome all the same. “You have a big heart Crowley. And what you do to be seen as evil is not innate cruelty. You are a good person.”

This was met with Crowley being all the more withdrawn, food forgotten. He stood up and told the angel he’d see him next week and left without so much as a goodbye.

* * *

The truth was, Crowley never did stop feeling the love channeled to him through prayer. He knew other demons had lost the ability, and for whatever sick reason, God had decided he would keep it.

And if he showed up to some cases and miracled them a cure, hell and heaven were none the wiser and any onlookers who knew him assumed he was up to no good. After all, why would a demon ever foster sympathy?


End file.
